Saudi solar tycoon’s $300m handout

Australians are set to pay $300 million in subsidies to an outback solar farm owned by a Saudi Arabian billionaire in a new test of the federal government’s looming energy reforms, escalating a dispute over whether to cut the handouts to keep coal-fired power stations alive.

The project’s owner, Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, is ­expanding into new solar farms across Australia after the federal government backed the first ­development with grants and concessional loans as well as guaranteed credits for more than a decade.

The scale of the financial aid has triggered calls to scale back the subsidies as Nationals MPs warn that jobs will be sent overseas if Australia does not find a way to drive down energy costs.